


A Shining Light

by Jade_Kyo



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Based on Personal Experiences, Dark Thoughts, Emotional Whump, Gen, Hair Pulling, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Breakdown, Negative Self Thoughts, Please read with caution, Scratching, Self Harm, Varian whump, contemplated cutting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26482030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Kyo/pseuds/Jade_Kyo
Summary: Dark thoughts swirl in Varian’s mind.
Relationships: Rapunzel & Varian (Disney)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 88





	A Shining Light

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic.... I’ve actually had this fic written since like December but I just took a very long time to edit it 😂 but it’s done now! Please read all the tags and warnings, this is a very sensitive topic so please take care of yourself and read with caution. 💚💙❤️

Everyone was avoiding him. He could tell, sure maybe they tried to hide it, but he could see through them every time. They hated him. They hated him and he deserved every little bit of it, Varian knew this. Sure Rapunzel could try all she wanted to tell him it wasn’t true, and for her, it wasn’t. She loved him, he knew that. She was his best friend, and he knew Eugene cared for him as well. And his dad, of course, his dad loved him and had even said he was proud of him, something Varian had sought for so long. So why wasn’t it enough? Why did his heart still ache every time he saw someone swerve around him while walking down the street? Why did it feel like everyone was staring at him, hating him? Why couldn’t he just be content? Why did he have to be so selfish? Why did he have to be him?

Varian sat huddled on the floor with his back against his bed. In his hand was a small knife, something he had used for one of his experiments. Normally he’d be wearing gloves but not tonight. 

He looked the blade over.

Just once, Varian thought. He could do it just once, nobody would notice with him always wearing those large gloves and even if they did he could just say it was a lab accident. He stared at the blade, _just once._ He pressed the blade against his skin, just holding it there, the cold metal sending a shiver through his body. His chest tightened and his breathing grew sporadic. _Why!?_

The question rang out in his mind. 

_Why was he like this?_

_Why couldn’t he just be good?_

_Why did he always have to misbehave?_

_Why didn’t he just listen?_

_Why did he have to be so emotional?_

_Why couldn’t he just be a better son?_

_Why couldn’t he just be a better friend?_

_Why couldn’t he just be a better person?_

_Why_

_Why_

_Why_

_Why_

_Why_

_Why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why_

_Why why why why_

_Why why why why why why_

_Why why why_

_Why_

_Why…._

_Wh-_

An agonizing scream escaped from Varian’s throat as his arm reeled back, knife in hand, and swung down tossing the knife helplessly across the room. He stared wide-eyed at the object. _Hard to breathe. Why was it hard to breath? Why couldn’t he breathe!?_

Varian could feel his chest tightening, _it hurt, everything hurt, why did it hurt._ His breaths coming in shallow and sporadic intervals. _Damn it why couldn’t he breathe!_ Tears streamed down his face uncontrollably. _Just calm down._

Varian’s bare hands slowly came up to his face, covering his teary eyes, then they slowly made their way up his head until they began to interweave with his hair. He sat there a moment, tears flowing uncontrollably, breaths ragged and thin, chest tight and hurting, and then he gripped his fingers around his hair and began to pull. He screamed and sobbed, pulling at his hair, it hurt. Pain that’s what he deserved, he deserved to suffer. He pulled harder feeling the sting on his scalp. If he didn’t have the guts to cut then he would just have to resort to other methods, and besides, it’s not like he was _actually_ hurting himself this way. This was just his punishment, it was what he deserved. At least that’s how he rationalized it. 

It wasn’t enough. He pulled his hands away from his hair, still shuddering and shaking from his sobs, his mind a blur of _“why’s”_ and _“you deserve this.”_ He felt his fingernails dig into the skin of his wrist and then dragged them down his forearm, feeling the stinging sensation from the pressure.

_Weak._

_I can’t even do this right._

_Failure._

_I deserve so much worse._

_Disappointment._

_They deserve better than me._

_Traitor._

The thoughts and insults continued to swirl around in his mind as his ragged sobs and screams echoed throughout his room. His arms ached from all the scratching and pinching. 

_Anything,_ he thought, _anything to make me hurt. To give me what I deserve._

After all, if nobody else would punish him then it only made sense to take matters into his own hands. Of course, he knew that if anyone knew he was self-harming they would be appalled. Rapunzel, his dad, Eugene, they’d do anything to help him. They were good like that. Which is why he didn’t deserve them, because he was bad, he was a failure, a disappointment, a traitor. He didn’t deserve their love. He could never deserve their love. So he cried, he cried harder than he had ever cried before. 

Varian didn’t know how long he’d been lying there on the floor. His cries had mellowed down to just silent whimpers. His body ached, his head was sore from tugging on his hair and his arms shivered with the reminiscent feelings of fingernails being dragged against the skin. He was a pathetic sight, at least he assumed so, laying there on his side crying, his arms wrapped around himself, his hair a matted mess, and his clothes disheveled. 

_It’s what I deserve-_

_This is wrong._

The thought broke through so suddenly, it was like a jolt of electricity through his body. He sat upright, staring at nothing. He could feel his chest tightening again, _breath, just breath, it’s okay,_ that urge to self-harm beginning to creep back in, but that little voice in the back of his head began to come through louder and louder. 

_This is wrong._

_You don’t deserve this._

_They’ve forgiven you._

_They love you._

_Forgive yourself._

He clasped his hands over his ears as fresh tears trailed down his face. His mind was at war with itself, the part that told him he deserved to suffer and the part that told him he should forgive himself.

“Stop…” his voice was hoarse and weak, cracking with his cries.

He felt the pressure building and building in his chest, his heart aching, he wanted to scream, he wanted to let everything out all at once. His thoughts ran wild, it felt like his mind was being pulled in a thousand different directions at once, and that at any moment it could finally break and shatter into tiny pieces, impossible to repair. 

_Why am I like this_

_They love you_

_I deserve this_

_I want to scream_

_Forgive yourself_

_I wish everything would just stop_

_I’m pathetic_

_Please just make it stop_

_This is wrong_

_I wish she would’ve let me die_

_It hurts, why does it hurt_

_I can’t breath_

_I just want everything to be okay again_

_I don’t want this_

_I don’t want to be sad anymore_

_I don’t want to hurt anymore_

_I don’t want to hurt myself anymore_

_I don’t want to be alone anymore._

That was it, he couldn’t take it any longer. He stood upright and bolted out the door, tears still streaming down his face. He ignored everything around him as he ran, the people, the trees, the buildings, none of it mattered. All that mattered was getting to _her._ All that mattered was _not being alone anymore._

* * *

His legs ached, he could barely breathe, he could feel his clothes sticking to his sweaty body and he could hear his heart pounding so hard it reverberated in his ears. He hadn’t stopped running since he started. He had to get to the palace, he needed this. He needed to know he wasn’t alone anymore. 

“Varian? What are you doing here?” Varian knew that voice well, it was Rapunzel. 

Varian turned to face her. Rapunzel stood there before him, her hair glowing like sunshine, with a smile to match. She radiated warmth, so welcoming and reassuring. Varian could already feel some of the tension leaving his body just from the sight of her. There was just this aura of healing that always seemed to follow her. 

“Oh,” her smile fell as she looked over him “Varian, are you okay? You don’t look so good-“

Varian flung his arms around her body in a tight embrace. He held her as tightly as he dared to, burying his face in her shoulder as fresh tears began to flow once more. 

“Varian!” She took a step back to maintain her balance as Varian’s weight came against her. She could feel him shaking against her body. She didn’t know why he was so upset but clearly, he needed comfort. She brought her arms gently around him, returning the embrace. “It’s okay.” She whispered, holding him in her arms. 

Varian sunk deeper into the embrace. There in her arms where he was safe and loved he finally began to really think about and process what had happened. He was so scared, of what he was not entirely sure, but his breakdown had shaken him to his core. He’d been dealing with the urge to self-harm for a while but the most he’d ever given in was just light scratching or pinching, but he had just almost cut. He had genuinely tried and wanted to hurt himself, he shook at the thought. He couldn’t believe what had happened and he was just so damn scared. 

“It’s okay... I’m here.” Rapunzel’s gentle voice echoed in his mind and he felt her warmth against him.

He took deep breaths, finally feeling his chest begin to loosen. A calming sensation began to wash over him as he stood there in Rapunzel’s arms, he felt like he could stay there forever, but he knew he couldn’t. He took one more stabilizing breath before forcing himself to pull away from the embrace. 

“Thank you…” he breathed as he rubbed his teary eyes on his sleeves. 

Rapunzel nodded, “do you need to talk?”

Varian paused for a moment, he couldn’t tell her, not yet, he wasn’t ready for that. He shook his head, “no… I just.. I just don’t want to be alone right now, okay?”

“Okay then,” Rapunzel smiled understandingly, “you can stay with me as long as you need to, and you don’t have to talk about anything you aren’t ready for, alright?” She placed her hand on his cheek reassuringly. Varian looked up into her emerald eyes. Her smile, her eyes, everything about her shone so brightly, so welcoming. That alone was almost enough to dispel his fears and worries. 

Varian smiled back at her, “thank you.”

“Anything for a friend.” She placed her arm around his shoulders and began to walk with him through the castle aisles. 

And Varian decided that maybe he could be okay, just for this moment, that he didn’t have to hurt, and that maybe, just maybe, he could grant himself a little forgiveness and that maybe it really was okay to begin healing. 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic well as I said in the tags it’s based on personal experiences, I just want to say that I am okay now, I consider myself a mentally and emotionally healthy person and I no longer have self harm urges. These events are from times long past but when I decided I wanted to write about this topic I knew the best thing to do was write about my personal experiences. Varian’s breakdown in this fic is (almost) word for word what happened to me. It’s a very dark and terrifying place to be but even if it can sometimes feel hopeless believe me it’s not. You can find the light and even if there’s no light you can make one yourself. 
> 
> If you are dealing with thoughts of self harm or worse please seek help either from family or friends or a medical professional. You don’t have to go through it alone.
> 
> You are loved, don’t forget that. 💙💚❤️


End file.
